


in case of trouble

by chidorinnn



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (Keith is also mentioned but not by name), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Developing Friendships, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Mentioned Matt Holt, Mentioned Shiro (Voltron), Past Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Post-Kerberos Mission, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:28:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26725939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chidorinnn/pseuds/chidorinnn
Summary: Pidge recognizes the Garrison official who processes her paperwork. She's never met him before, but Matt's talked about him enough that she can pick out the brown hair, darker brown skin, glasses, and stuffily put-together officer's uniform. He'd been friends with her brother, once.The name tag pinned to his uniform reads "Adam W." There's a pinch to his brow as he scans her forged contact information and falsified transcripts and medical records. "So," he says, "Pidge Gunderson."
Relationships: Adam & Pidge | Katie Holt
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	in case of trouble

Pidge recognizes the Garrison official who processes her paperwork. She's never met him before, but Matt's talked about him enough that she can pick out the brown hair, darker brown skin, glasses, and stuffily put-together officer's uniform. He'd been friends with her brother, once, alongside Takashi Shirogane and one other cadet that she's never met and whose name she doesn't know — and then they stopped being friends, for whatever reason, or at least Matt had stopped talking about him — but it's simultaneously comforting and terrifying, all the same, to be so close in proximity to someone familiar.

The name tag pinned to his uniform reads "Adam W." There's a pinch to his brow as he scans her forged contact information and falsified transcripts and medical records. "So," he says, "Pidge Gunderson."

His eyes drift down to her, narrowed with something that could be either suspicion or mild annoyance. She watches as he takes in the pilfered glasses, the too-short brown hair — but there is no anger, no accusations. "That's me," she says, pushing her luck just a little. His eyes narrow into something almost like a glare. "... uh, sir," she quickly appends.

They stare at each other for a long moment. Sweat starts to collect in her palms, but she doesn't let it show — not when he has the power to end this right here.

—and he breaks first. Adam sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose, and says, wearily, "Fine. Do what you have to."

He turns, sharply, to the student in line behind her, and Pidge takes that as her cue to run. She'll be lucky if she never sees him again, after this — but somehow, she can't shake the feeling that that won't be the case.

* * *

Miraculously, she makes it through the first week of class without any other hiccups. Then the second, and the third.

She's always had an idea of how laughable the Garrison's defenses are, but it's never been more apparent in how easily she blends in with the rest of the student body. It hardly takes any effort at all. Her roommate, thankfully, leaves her alone beyond his attempts at smalltalk every so often. Bathrooms are a non-issue when she's able to grant herself access to the single-stall bathrooms set aside purely for Garrison faculty (thanks Dad).

A month in, she goes to the rooftop for the first time. It's after lights out, so it would be disastrous if she were to be caught — but she's been preparing for months to be here. She'll do what she came here to do, or die trying.

So she sets up her radio, fastens the headset around her ears, and waits. This is the boring part, albeit the most important — but perhaps it's not the best idea to tune everything else out, when her position here is already so precarious.

—because the next thing she knows, Adam's there on the rooftop with her, glaring down at her. It's only the knowledge that he was once friends with her brother, that makes it possible to not make it obvious just how screwed she is.

"When I told you to do what you had to," he seethes, "I meant within the laws of the Garrison."

She doesn't know much about this guy. She didn't even know his name before coming to the Garrison. And yet, she can remember Matt telling her about one friend in particular, not Takashi Shirogane, who liked things done a certain way, was a little bit of a stick in the mud — and so, she feels no guilt whatsoever when she retorts, "Your friends disappear and the Garrison decides to cover their asses by calling it 'pilot error,' and _you're_ worried about following their rules?"

Something fractures in his expression, then — and it's hard not to feel guilty when it becomes evident that that was a low blow. "Look," says Pidge, sighing harshly. "If you're not here to help me, then stay out of my way. That's all I'm asking."

He looks at her for a long moment, and then slowly sinks to the floor next to her. "Hey, military security's no joke," he says. "At least _try_ to take it a little more seriously? For my blood pressure, if nothing else."

At that, she can't help but smile. "I make no such promises."

He smiles back, gently. It's so unexpectedly nice that all of a sudden, she can see just why Matt had been friends with this person. He might be a stick in the mud, intent on doing things a certain way, but he'll stand by you when it counts — that he still hasn't told a soul about who she is and why she's really here, when it's obvious that he knows the truth, is more than enough evidence of that.

"Well, you already know who I am," says Adam, "and I know who you are... but we never really had a proper introduction, did we?"

She shrugs. "I only met Shiro," she says. "Heard a lot about you, though."

He nods. "Matt talked a lot about you, too," he says.

"All good things, I hope."

"Mm... _mostly_ good things."

"Ass."

"Brat."

Against all reason, this is enough to send them both into a fit of giggles. She can't remember the last time she's laughed like this — before Matt and Dad disappeared, for sure. Maybe before they left for Kerberos, even. (Maybe Adam hasn't laughed like this since back then, either.)

It's strange, to share this moment with someone she only met a few weeks ago — and yet, it feels like she's known Adam for a long, long time.

* * *

Adam doesn't meet her on the rooftop every time she goes. He's too busy for that — even if full-time Garrison officers don't have rigidly structured schedules like the cadets, there's more they need to get done before their work is _truly_ over.

Sometimes, he's already there when she goes up there. It's hard to tell if he's waiting for her up there, or if he likes going there all on his own — but he never protests when she joins him, and for that, she's grateful.

He'll never agree to listen with her, even when she offers him her headset every time. "Aren't you at least a _little_ curious?" she asks him one day.

He shrugs. "What would be the point? So, you discover that the Garrison really did try to cover something up. That doesn't mean it's going to bring them all back."

She _knows_ that, damn it, but he doesn't have to rub it in. "It's _wrong_."

"It is," he concedes, "but I'm much more interested in taking care of the people still here, than chasing after ghosts."

... Matt had stopped talking about Adam, at some point. Maybe this is where their falling out happened. "They're not ghosts," she says.

"You don't know that."

"You don't know that, either!"

"We know _nothing_." His voice is a low whisper. Somehow, that's worse than if he'd yelled at her instead. "You're looking for aliens in radio frequencies, that _idiot's_ chasing mirages in the middle of the desert, and the Garrison still won't—" He cuts off there, his voice cracking as he slaps a hand over his mouth.

Something frighteningly unsteady gleams in his eyes, and... oh. She's screwed this up. "Hey, listen—"

He pushes his hands up under his glasses, and he buries his face in them. "We know _nothing_ ," he says again, plaintively, "because _someone_ decided that it was more important to keep the truth a secret than to consider the people left behind by... by _pilot error_. And I know it's pointless to just wait here, endlessly, and hope that they'll _say something_ , but—what am I supposed to do?"

"Adam—"

"I just," he says, his voice shaking. "You're fighting back. It's what Takashi deserves, but I—I _can't_."

She has to say something — but every time she tries to think of something, the words evaporate before they can fully materialize into coherent sentences. Adam's shoulders are shaking, and she reaches out towards him — but before she can touch him, think to say something, literally anything else, he bolts to his feet and leaves the rooftop.

* * *

The facts are these:

  1. Matt had three people he considered close friends, at the Garrison: Shiro, Adam, and a third person that Pidge has never met and whose name she still doesn't know.

  2. Two of them, in that friend group, are missing. Adam is here, at the Garrison. Pidge hasn't seen the third guy here, as far as she knows.

  3. There was a falling out at one point, which probably explains why Adam hadn't been there at the launch.

  4. It couldn't have been _that_ bad, though — Matt had never said anything bad about him, after all.

  5. Adam's still here, working at the Garrison — surrounded by people who call it _pilot error_ and _mission failure_.

  6. Part of working here means that he has to grin and bear it, when they do that — pretend it doesn't affect him when they talk like that about his friends.




She's an asshole. A grade-A asshole. It wasn't fair of her, to think that she was the only one who truly cared about the truth behind what had happened to the Kerberos crew. It had clearly affected Adam too, to a degree that he's never been allowed to express.

(One thing her mother had reminded her over and over, since Matt and Dad first went missing, is that you don't get to tell other people how to grieve.)

It's laughably easy to find his address, even when it's not publicly listed in the Garrison's internal directory. It takes her half a day to reprogram a vintage vacuum cleaner robot to sync with his phone and play audio, and she hopes the "sorry I tried to make you feel bad about the way you're grieving for your missing friends" present is enough when she goes to visit him the next weekend.

He lives in an apartment complex less than a mile away — privately owned, which probably means that the Garrison isn't helping him out at all with rent. There are two meticulously cared for house plants framing the front door; there isn't the slightest bit of dust on the door, but there's an intense, spicy aroma coming from inside the apartment.

He answers half a minute after she rings the doorbell, looking just as stuffily put together in street clothes as he would have in his officer's uniform. He doesn't glare at her, when his eyes land on her — instead, his expression is oddly soft. "I should've known you'd find your way here one way or the other," he says. "Come in. Shoes off, please."

She toes her shoes off and kicks them off the welcome mat, before stepping into the apartment. Whatever he's cooking, it smells _good_ — even though the smell will probably linger in the apartment for a good while longer, once he's done. "Sorry, for the mess," he says, but the worst she can see is maybe one pillow tilted askew on the couch and one jacket resting on the back of a dining chair.

"Uh... this is for you," she says, holding up the bag with the vacuum robot. "Can I...?"

He glances over briefly, before heading into the kitchen. "Yeah, just leave it over there by the couch," he says. "Sorry, can't talk for very long. I need to be somewhere soon. Can I get you anything? Water? Food?"

But he looks busy enough, hustling away in the kitchen. "Nah, I'm good," she answers. For the time being, she settles into one of the stools by the counter separating the kitchen from the dining room. There's two framed photographs resting there: the first is of Adam, Matt, Shiro, and the fourth person in their friend group — a boy with a mop of dark hair and sharp, indigo eyes. The four of the are lined up together, arms slung around each other's shoulders and all of them smiling happily to the camera. Matt, in particular, looks like he's laughing.

The second is of just Adam and Shiro — the both of them pressed close to one another, arms slung around each other's shoulders. There's something different about this picture, though, not like the one with all four together — something else that compels Adam to stand that close to Shiro, hold onto him that much more tightly.

... oh. Now it makes sense, why he'd fixated on Shiro specifically, that night on the rooftop. Now it makes sense, why there might have been a time when he distanced himself from the rest of the group.

"Um, so..." says Pidge, slowly. "Got any plans?" It's a dumb question, because he just said that he has somewhere he needs to be.

"Yeah," he answers, somewhat distractedly. "Meeting a friend in a bit." At that point, he switches off the stove, and starts pulling a series of plastic containers from one of the cabinets.

"That's a lot of food for one picnic," she says.

Adam chuckles. "It's not just one picnic," he says. "He... has a bit of a one-track mind. Like you. He's not the best at taking care of himself, so all he eats is canned, instant crap. Figured he should have at least _something_ homemade to tide him over."

... oh. The fourth guy in their friend group. The so-called _idiot chasing mirages in the desert_. "Do you visit him often?" Pidge asks.

"Uh..." says Adam, rubbing the back of his neck as he leans back against the countertop next to the stove. "Whenever I can. Definitely not as much as I probably should."

An awkward silence settles between them — and Pidge is terrible at this sort of thing. She came here to apologize, but the words are stuck in her throat, and she has no idea how to start.

(Matt was always better at this sort of thing.)

"Listen..." says Adam. "I'm... really sorry, about the other night. I shouldn't have lost it like that, at you."

"No, that's..." says Pidge, awkwardly. "That's totally fine. It's just... this whole situation just _sucks_."

He sighs, wearily. "Yeah... agreed."

"But, uh..." Pidge stares resolutely down — at her fingertips, her broken and relentlessly chewed nails. "I... should apologize, too. It was kind of shitty of me, to put all of that on you."

"No, keep putting it on me," says Adam. "Ah... if you want to, that is. That's what I'm here for."

"Yeah, but you shouldn't have to. They were your friends, too." And if she's right about Shiro, then more than friends in at least one case.

His expression crumples. "... yeah. They were."

... it's not fair. Matt, Dad, and Shiro deserve better than to be remembered for a fabricated failure in a shoddy Garrison cover-up. Her family deserves better than the cheap platitudes the Garrison gave her mom, just hours before the news broke. Adam deserves better than to have to go back there every day, living that same lie.

—but they move forward anyway. Adam turns back towards the stove, and begins ladling one of the pots' contents into a container. "Oh..." says Pidge, sliding off the stool and making her way into the kitchen. "Let me help."

He seals the container, and hands it to her. It's warm and it smells _amazing_ — from what she can see, it looks like some kind of stew. "Can you put these in one of those bags over there?" he asks, jerking his thumb towards a small pile of reusable grocery bags by the pantry. She nods, and sets the container down on the nearest countertop before bringing the bags over. "I'm sorry. If I knew you were coming, I would've made more."

She smiles, and bags the container. "Next time, then."

Adam smiles — and after months, something in her finally settles. "Yeah. Next time."

**Author's Note:**

> some notes:
> 
> 1) the title comes from a song in the game _bastion_ 's soundtrack. i have never once played this game, but i was listening to that song on a loop while writing the thing  
> 2) [something i kept in mind while trying to write adam's character](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBwELzvnrQg)  
> 3) this is not exactly fanon-compliant, but i like to think that keith had a very senpai/kouhai-esque relationship with shiro, adam, and matt. he's that freshmen who's friends with all seniors, and then struggles when all his friends graduate (except in this case, two of those friends are missing)


End file.
